Saturday, February 09, 2008

That's afternoon tea to you

Oh, yes, doesn't "high tea" sound elegant and refined?

The problem is that the thing we do where we spend too much money on a pot of tea with finger sandwiches and scones with our lady friends is NOT "high tea." If you're an American, strike "high tea" from your vocabulary because it is unlikely that you will ever have high tea, or at least if you do, you will probably call it "dinner" lest you confuse people.

I'm just telling you so the waiters at the Ritz don't talk about you behind your back when you use the wrong term. I'm a giver, that's what I am.

Glad we got that straight.

*********The tea pictured above was at Jin Patisserie in Venice, California (sadly not Venice Italy). They have a lovely calm patio with a squat murmuring fountain and bamboo growing around the edges, quite calming and nice.

The tea included a pot of your choice of 36 (I think) teas, two egg salad finger sandwiches, two little tangerine scones, a mini quiche, a little piece of blueberry bread topped with a chocolate, clotted cream, homemade lemon marmalade, and sweets including green tea, passionfruit, and white chocolate. The sweets were all light and not horribly sugary.

There was so much food that I only could eat part of it there. I hate egg sandwiches so I skipped those. The rest I packed up and ate in the car on the way home. See how I am?